Prediction and Generalisation in Word Processing and Storage

Word storage and processing have traditionally been modelled according to different computational paradigms, in line with the classical corner-stone of "dual-route" models of word structure assuming a sharp dissociation between memory and computation (Clahsen 1999, Di Sciullo & Williams 1987, Pinker & Prince 1988, Parasada & Pinker 1993). Even the most radical alternative to dual-route thinking, connectionist one-route models, challenged the lexicon-grammar dualism only by providing a neurally-inspired mirror image of classical base-to-inflection rules, while largely neglecting issues of lexical storage (Rumelhart & McClelland 1986, McClelland & Patterson 2002, Seidenberg & McClelland 1989). Recent psycho- and neuro-linguistic evidence, however, supports a less deterministic and modular view of the interaction between stored word knowledge and on-line processing [Baayen et al. 1997, Hay 2001, Maratsos 2000, Stemberger & Middleton 2003, Tabak et al. 2005, Ford et al. 2003, Post et al. 2008). The view entails simultaneous activation of distributed patterns of cortical connectivity encoding redundant distributional regularities in language data. Furthermore, recent developments in morphological theorising question the primacy of grammar rules over lexical storage, arguing that word regularities emerge from independent principles of lexical organisation, whereby lexical units and constructions are redundantly stored and mutually related through entailment relations (Matthews 1991, Corbett & Fraser 1993, Pirrelli 2000, Burzio 2004, Booij 2010). We endorse here such a non modular view on Morphology to investigate two basic behavioural aspects of human word processing: morphological prediction and generalisation. The investigation is based on a computer model of morphology acquisition supporting the hypothesis that they both derive from a common pool of principles of lexical organisation.